


Cross the Veil and the Fade, and all the stars in the sky

by WyrmTurns



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Deviates From Canon, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Healing, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, My First Work in This Fandom, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Regular updates - hopefully!, This starts out dark... and may stay that way for a while - sorry guys, Work In Progress, You Have Been Warned, comments welcome, death of a child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-05 13:21:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18366851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WyrmTurns/pseuds/WyrmTurns
Summary: A rather dark re-telling of Dragon Age Inquisition with a MWiT (Modern Woman in Thedas) - except she's not forearmed with knowledge of events and betrayals to come.The story will deviate from canon (a lot), with only major plot points remaining. But even these will not play out the same. (Do not expect paragraphs of word-for-word in-game conversations!)** Alice loses her daughter, Ella, and must deal with her grief, a whole new world at war, and a mark of magic on her hand.Through the pain and the suffering, will she eventually find peace? Will she make new friends who'll bring a little happiness to the dire situation she's thrust into? **





	1. Chapter 1

“Again, mummy, again!”

I sigh. “Really, sweetie?”

“Again!” comes an emphatic reply from the back seat. “Do you wanna build snowman” she says, as if we hadn’t been listening to that same, damn song repeatedly for an hour now.

“Okay. But it’s the last time I’m putting it on. Deal?”

“Yeth, mummy. Deal.”

_Disney has a lot to answer for_. I reach over to the stereo, but as my finger clicks the rewind button, a flash of green light floods the car’s interior: not the sodium yellow a street lamp, nor the dazzling white of headlights.

“Shit!” I’m blind, swirling green clouds obscuring my vision of the road. Instinctively I slam my foot on the brake pedal, and the steering wheel jerks out of my grasp. The off-side tyre hits something with a hard jolt, throwing me against the seatbelt. Behind me, Ella shrieks in terror.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Trigger warning **  
> Death of a child, some of the description may be upsetting

“… another one, Commander. Over here.”

Someone is tugging me backwards, onto a stretcher, and I feel it lift. Ella! I open my eyes in panic. I need to find Ella!

A blond man, gripping the stretcher handles down near my feet, glances off to one side. A fireman? He’s dressed in a peculiar looking asbestos suit, with no helmet or oxygen mask… and a red cloak? “Maker’s breath, she’s just a child.” My heart compresses, squeezing until it pounds so violently, I want to vomit.

“Ella.” My voice is hoarse as I beg: “Please. She’s my daughter. Leave me! Help her, help Ella!”

His amber gaze locks with mine, solemn and dark with sorrow. “I’m sorry” he says. Bullshit. It’s not too late. Why aren’t they doing anything?!

I sit up, a sharp, lancing pain in my sternum and ribs. I clutch at my side, ignoring the discomfort the best I can, and try to swing my legs off the stretcher.

“Serrah, you can’t do that. You’re injured.”

“Don’t you dare!” I shout. The hand I’m pointing at him with crackles like static, a glimmering, green gash on my palm. “What-?” And then I see her. My beautiful daughter, crumpled on the ground, her pink dress blood-soaked and torn. Her eyes are shut, ashen skin streaked with black, sooty grime.

“Ella!” I fall from the stretcher and scrape my knees on the stony ground. It doesn’t matter, I don’t care. Wood clatters as the stretcher is tossed aside.

There’s a glint of silver in my periphery. “I’m sorry” the blond firefighter repeats. “She’s gone.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No. No. No.” I crawl on all fours, dizzy and unable to breathe. Ella doesn’t move. The man kneels in front of me, blocking my path, and I scream in his face – no words, just a release of intense, raw loss. He places both hands on my shoulders, expression fraught. A torrent of hot tears soaks the collar of my blouse, and I scream at this man, this useless man stopping me from reaching my daughter. I beat my hands against his chest, screaming and sobbing, until the world spins. Plunging down a helter-skelter into blackest agony, my consciousness folds in on itself and I am nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

I’m trapped in a waking nightmare. A phantasmal purgatory filled with monsters. _Demons._

“I don’t know what you want from me” I say.

The dark-haired woman looks to her companion, the red-headed Nightingale. “To find who did this, and to help us fix this mess.” A large book clasped in her gloved hands seems to bring her comfort. Cassandra, doesn’t smile, but her gruffness is muted. Softer around the edges. They’re trying to win my trust, my dedication, but I don’t trust either of them. They were quick to pin me with accusations, cold to my own grief. They had called me a murderer.

“This isn’t real.” I remain impassive. I won’t give them what they want, not so easily.

The Nightingale’s lilt is placating, almost musical. “We wish it wasn’t either, but we can support you through this” she says.

Her job is to spy, to read people and situations, turning them to her benefit. How can you trust someone like that? _You can’t._

I huddle on my chair, drawing my knees up to my aching chest. The two women wait patiently. Expectant. They call me a ‘Herald’ because of the thing on my hand: the hateful mark, the same green hue I saw before the car crash. An alien scourge called ‘magic’. I’ve seen things to give me pause, but I still refuse to believe. _I’m losing my mind._ “I promise if you stay, we will get to the bottom of what happened.” Pretty lies - she didn’t know Ella. They need me, but I don’t need them.

“An accident, providence, brought you to us. Think on it” Cassandra says to me in parting, and the two women finally leave me alone in the war room. The tears come again, hot and fast. My daughter deserves them all.


	4. Chapter 4

I pace, fingers twisting in my long hair. _I can’t do it._

“Are… are you alright?” Cullen hesitates, awaiting a signal to allow his approach. I’d hated him, blamed him even, for not doing more. But Ella’s death is not his fault.

“No.” My admission is a mere whisper, the guilt of it choking me. She’s my daughter. I should be able to do this.

Compacted snow crunches under his boots. He looks to the cabin, and then to me. “Ella?” _He remembers her name._

“Yes. They retrieved… her body.” I must wash her, dress her for the funeral, and I can’t do it - this goes unspoken, yet Cullen is astute enough to realize what’s going on.

“Do you… Would you like… uhm. I could help?” He rubs at the back of his neck.

“Please.”

Cullen lets out a breath, a puff of white fog in the chill. “Alright.”

_My finger touches the button on the car stereo, and then the green light flashes…_

“Alice?” He calls my name and the waves part. I surface from the stormy depths, suffocating.

Blinking free the droplets clinging to my lashes, all I can do is nod. Cullen opens the door, and I take a shaky step past him into the cabin.

The table is covered with a cream linen sheet, and there’s a basin of water with some rags beside it. Someone has knitted a teddy bear, placing it in the crook of her arm. She’s so small, and still. Out of the corner of my eye I see the glint of silver, of armour, and reality crashes over me. I spin on my heels, and Cullen’s hands are on my shoulders once again.

Amber eyes, such a rare honeyed tint, are wide with concern. “If you need to” he says, “let it go.” He’s giving me permission to scream at him, to wail against him and vent, as I did at the temple. _She’s dead. Ella is dead._

Strong arms pull me into an embrace and my nose presses to his neck, the scent of leather, cedarwood, and _him_. I sob, noises escaping me that barely sound human. A soldier, a protector. In this moment, he’s the bulwark I desperately need.

He strokes my hair, and the other hand rubs circles between my shoulder blades. I hiccup, leaning back to look at him with puffy, sore eyes.

“Will… we… find… who… did… this?” I ask.

“The Inquisition will punish those responsible for your daughter’s death, and the Divine’s.” Cullen answers resolutely, without a hint of mendacity. Unlike Cassandra and the Nightingale trying to recruit me for their senseless war, I trust his word.

“Good.”

“Then you’ll stay?”

“I’ll stay.” His arms tighten around me as I slump against his torso, spent. Either I’ll avenge my Ella or die trying.


	5. Chapter 5

The dried dirt on Ella’s skin is stubborn, and I’m scared to rub too hard in case I hurt her. Deep down, I know my maternal impulses are irrational now, but I can’t ignore them. Slowly, the perfect porcelain of her complexion is restored. I see the freckle on her wrist, identical to mine, and the birthmark on her thigh. The strawberry blotch has faded to brown over the short years.

Cullen silently offers a fresh, dampened rag and takes the grubby one from my trembling fingers. Liquid sloshes, and a rivulet of lavender-scented water tinkles into the copper bowl as he wrings it out. 

_Ella sits in the tub surrounded by mountains of bubbles, splashing in the foam. Her giggles echo, bouncing off the apricot and cream tiles in the bathroom. I keep meaning to get an estimate to redecorate and replace the suite with something less old-fashioned._

_My playful admonishment is thwarted by her infectious laughter. “Too much bubble bath, sweetie” I tell her, trying to sound serious._

_Ella gives me a gappy smile in return - another tooth under the pillow and a midnight visit to practice sleight of hand, swapping it for a golden coin. “I’m a printheth, mummy. A printheth hath bubbleth, and a unicorn, and a cathle…”_

_“A castle, huh?”_

_“Yeth, mummy, a huge cathle like Eltha’th!” Ella throws her arms open wide, sending the foam flying._

This cherished memory twists a knife in my gut. There’s no joy gained from it, just soul-wrenching misery. I double over, bracing myself against the table. _This is wrong._ Ella was meant to be staying the weekend with my mother, the pink dress bought at her insistence so that she’d ‘look pretty for nanny’.

“Are there any other clothes?” It’s the first either of us has spoken for so long that, even though I know it’s my voice, it makes me jump. I clear my throat. “Her dress. It…”

“Let me see what I can do. Will you be okay on your own for a while?”

“Yes.” I scan the gloomy cabin, searching for brush or comb. I spot one on the oak cabinet next to the shuttered window: a round, rosewood brush with black horsehair bristles.

I tease out the tangles and knots, wetting the brush to smooth the waves of her mousy hair. Outside is the stomping of feet kicking off encrusted snow from boots. Cullen has returned, though he isn’t alone. I try not to stare at the slender woman with pointed ears accompanying him. She’s carrying a tray, laden with a full water skin, a bowl of stew and chunk of rye bread from the tavern, and a lantern. The halo of incandescent light radiating from the candleflame stings my reddened eyes.

Setting the tray down carefully on the oaken cabinet – amidst the dainty, empty glass vials which had contained the lavender essence – the elven servant relieves Cullen of a bundle tied with twine.

“I hope you find this suitable, Herald” she says, plucking at the bow and unravelling it. Inside is a tunic, knitted with soft woollen threads dyed a lemon yellow. There are crocheted flowers detailing the neckline and hem. Although rustic, the garment has a certain charm and I think Ella would’ve liked it.

I point to the teddy bear. “Are they-?”

 The servant nods. “Sister Bethan made them” she confirms.

“Then I’ll be sure to thank Sister Bethan for her kindness” I tell her as she departs to continue her duties elsewhere in the village.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Trigger Warning **  
> The details aren't extremely graphic (and are very brief), but they may still be upsetting given the subject matter: the death of a child.

Cullen respectfully turns his back and I begin stripping Ella out of her tattered dress. There are bands of purple bruising across her stomach and chest, a sign of impact trauma from the seatbelt. There are no gashes or puncture wounds. _Internal bleeding?_ _There are mages here, magical doctors, so surely…_ I shake my head. _No._ I’m playing the blame game again, and with the wrong people. Something brought us here, but it wasn’t through their actions. The villagers, soldiers, and spellcasters have lost colleagues, friends, and family too. The entire temple is in ruins, obliterated by the explosion.

Getting Ella out of her dress is easier than trying to get the knitted tunic on.

“Cullen.”

“Heral- Alice?”

A slip of the infernal moniker, yet I hadn’t considered: - he has a title too. Is it rude to use his name?

“I’m sorry. Would you prefer I didn’t call you Cullen?”

“What? No! It’s fine. Preferable, in fact.”

“Okay. I didn’t know if I was wrong, or if you were offended…”

“Not at all.” I can almost hear the smile in his voice, and it gladdens me. He’s been so patient and supportive that I’d hate to think I’d unwittingly annoyed him.

“Cullen?”

“What do you need, Alice?”

“I’m not strong enough to hold Ella up and…”

“Oh.” He turns around, a sadness etching across his face with a frown as he regards my daughter on the table. “If it’s alright?” he asks.

“Yes.”

He switches places with me and slips a hand under Ella’s neck. Cullen is surprisingly gentle as he lifts her up. He manoeuvres her as needed and cradles her rigid body to his armour, almost as if she were his own daughter. With Cullen’s help, I manage to slip the knitted tunic over Ella’s head and push her arms through the sleeves. I straighten the fabric when he puts her down again.

Washing Ella was tough enough but dressing her as if she were a mannequin would have broken me if I’d not shed so many tears already. Instead, I’m detached. _It’s done,_ I think numbly.

I turn to Cullen and start to apologize. I’d needed his help today, to tend to Ella, and I’m grateful for it. But I shouldn’t have asked it of him. This is something intimate, and distressing. I hadn’t given a thought about his emotions. How _he_ would feel about this. “I’m sorry for-”

Cullen cuts my apology short. “Don’t.” He cups my chin and tilts it so that I look him square in the eye. I see unshed tears glistening in the lantern light. “It was my privilege, Alice” he says huskily.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s late. A hubbub of voices drifts past the cabin, off-duty soldiers heading to ‘The Singing Maiden’ in search of food and alcohol. The stew, forgotten, is a congealed lump of chewy meat and gravy. Even if it wasn’t, I’m not hungry anyway.  

Cullen fetches a bedroll from the corner, tucked under a rickety chair. “Do you want me to-?”

“I can manage.”

Knuckles rapping on the door makes me gasp, and Cullen motions at me to wait as he steps outside. Through the crack I can hear the rumble of hushed conversation. _A man then, maybe one of Cullen’s soldiers._ I sway unsteadily on my feet and set-to unfurling the bedroll, which smells dusty as if it’s been sitting in storage, unused, for a while. A cursory glance tells me it’s clean, and it'll cushion me well enough from the wooden floorboards. I sit down heavily, shattered.

Cullen returns, a silver kite shield etched with a red, flaming sword on his arm.

“What’s wrong?! Are we under attack?”

“Maker’s breath, I’m sorry. I should have explained.”

My eyes dart to the door, and then back to the shield. If there was a threat, I would've heard it, wouldn’t I? The soldiers would be rounding themselves up into groups and calling out orders or something. “That was my Lieutenant, Knight-Captain Rylen. He’s a templar” Cullen says.

My head swims with all the titles and organizations mentioned over the last day or two. “I… I don’t think I have enough context for what that means.”

“We’ll go over that. Later. It’s not important tonight. Just…” He rubs at his neck with his free hand, a motion I’ve noticed that’s habitual whenever he seems unsure. “This is Rylen’s templar shield. I left the Order, so I don’t have mine anymore. It’s traditional for a high-ranking templar officer to have an honour guard standing vigil over their body… before they’re interred or burnt.”

The pieces of what he’s telling me slowly connect. “And you want to do that for Ella?”

Cullen nods, his adam’s apple bobbing as he nervously swallows.. “I can… I can leave, if you don’t want me to stand vigil....”

I cross my arms. “Why?”

“Why?” Cullen’s expression is simultaneously confused and aghast.

I curl my fist to conceal the unsightly green mark. “Is it because of _this_ thing?”

“No, not in the slightest.”

“My daughter wasn’t the only one to die. When I woke, chained in the dungeons, everyone blamed _me_. I was loathed. Vilified.” I take a deep breath, but my rage spirals. I can’t control it, and I don’t want to. “The other bodies, they were put onto a pyre. Their families weren’t called to Haven to mourn them. So, yes, Cullen. Why?! If not for this cursed thing on my hand, why do all of this for Ella?”

“You told Josephine it was customary for your world” Cullen says calmly. “We were trying to give your daughter an appropriate send-off. If we erred, tell me what I can do to make it right. Please, Alice.”

“You didn’t err, but I’m-”

 Cullen removes the shield from his arm, leaning it against the wall, and lowers himself down onto the bedroll. “-scared” he finishes for me. And he’s right. “You think everyone is treating you differently because they want you here to… be used like a tool. And in a small way you’re correct. The magic infused in the palm of your hand is the _only_ thing that will closes the tears in the veil. With you on our side, lives will be saved. But you’re scared because you’re alone. You’ve lost the thing most precious to you: your daughter. You worry that people are treating you like this solely for the mark, and that they don’t really care about you at all.”

“You’ve been a pillar of strength, and shown both of us so much compassion...”

“None of it is fake, Alice. I meant what I said: about it being a privilege to be here for you, and for Ella, this afternoon.” My anger subsides, pacified by his earnest assurances. _Idiot. Why are you pushing Cullen away?_ “If I could alter the outcome, if I could bring her back to you, I would. I know about despair. About its jagged claws that sink into your very being, ripping it apart.” He briefly shuts his eyes, and shudders at the terrible scene haunting him behind his closed lids. “I would do anything to stop that, Alice. Because I _do_ care, and it’s not a pretence.” He envelops my fist with a large, gloved hand. “I’ve seen you,” he adds, “being brave today. You locked it all inside, to get through this for her. Grief has many stages to process, and anger is one of them. So, if you were, don’t even think about saying sorry.”

I rest my head on his shoulder, nestling into the fur of his cloak. His scent, of cedarwood and leather, mingles with the traces of lavender in the cabin.


	8. Chapter 8

Cullen takes up his position next to Ella, facing the cabin door. He draws the sword from the sheathe at his hip, gripping the pommel lightly with his right hand and resting the tip of the sword on the floorboards. His left arm slips through the straps fixed to the rear of Rylen’s templar shield and he raises it up, holding it level in front of his chest. In the dimming, flickering lantern light, His armour glints and shimmers. A stereotypical, clichéd image of a knight in shining armour.

I don’t know Cullen, not really, but if he hadn’t shown me the gentler side of his nature, the power he radiates is intimidating. The man I’ve heard barking instructions at the soldiers in Haven, and the man - when escorted back to the temple to try to close the breach - I witnessed slashing at demons with force and precision is not the sum of the man I’ve spent the afternoon with today. Cullen makes me feel safe, and it’s been years, after Tom’s abuse, that I’ve felt like that with any man.

I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep. Ella’s laughter, her singing, her chatter whilst playing, the cry that makes my heart skip as I rush to find she’s grazed a knee when falling, they’re deafening in the quiet of night. As I lie on the musty bedroll, something trickles through the deluge of bittersweet recollections and spreads like tendrils of smoke. It curls, wrapping around the vestiges teasing me – sounds and sights I’ll never experience first-hand again – and muffles them until they’re tolerable. _Cullen._ His dulcet murmuring gives me another point of focus, and it’s a balm to the callousness of my self-torment.

 

_“Though all before me is shadow,_

_Yet shall the Maker be my guide._

_I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond._

_For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light_

_And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost._

_I am not alone. Even_

_As I stumble on the path_

_With my eyes closed, yet I see_

_The Light is here._

_Draw your last breath, my friends._

_Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky._

_Rest at the Maker's right hand,_

_And be Forgiven…”_  

I doze. Periodically I’m stirred awake by dreams of Ella. I call her name and she’s so happy that I can see the deep dimples in her cheeks, but she shakes her head solemnly: “No, mummy” and dissolves like mist between my fingers. I don’t know if I cry out in my sleep and Cullen can hear me, but my racing heart slows as his quiet recital succours and covers me in a blanket of tranquillity. I drift back into unrestful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trials 1:1-1:16


	9. Chapter 9

Josephine, bless her, has somehow managed to cobble together a decent mourning outfit for me to wear for Ella’s funeral, and I’m touched that she had the forethought to do so. The elven servant – the same woman from yesterday – delivered the ensemble (neutral hues of grey, brown, and black) which consists of a pair of trousers, a knee-length tunic, and a duster jacket, and a black sash belt to cinch the baggy, borrowed clothing around my waist. It’s presentable, though not what I would have chosen. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be burying my little girl in the first place. _Not before me; no-one wants to attend their own child’s funeral._

Cullen apologetically retreated to freshen up and grab something for breakfast after standing vigil all night. He promised to escort me to the chantry when it’s time. It’s the first I’ve been alone with my daughter, and I need the space. I don’t think I could’ve got this far without him, but there are some things that can only be done in private. The tears come first, the finality of it settling in my stomach like hot embers. I twist my hands together. I can’t bring myself to touch her again. I want to remember the blood pulsing in Ella’s veins, warming her, and not the wax-textured doll that her form’s been reduced to.

After the tears stop flowing, there’s immobility and a crushing silence. I take in every detail, every blemish, mole, and freckle. Ella’s lashes, the curve of her chin and nose. I’ll never forget her, how can I? But there’s a sudden desperation to paint a picture of her in my mind, in case anything begins to slip away from me. _I could die tomorrow for this stupid cause, and then it wouldn’t matter._ The mark on my hand… it wasn’t created from a place of creation, but of death. The explosion at the temple took them all. It took Ella. How do you turn that into something good? How do you fight against those who would know how to rain that much destruction down on others without a care?

There’s a tiny flicker of hope, a spark of anger and stubbornness gathering fuel, igniting with the coals in my belly. I won’t have this be for nought, all of this horror. Whomever is responsible should suffer for their depravity. _And they will._ It doesn’t make me feel better, though it does instil an urge to fight. _For Ella. For the mothers whose children have been snatched away from them, like mine._ I will take each day as it comes. I will try.

Cullen brought the coffin into the cabin and put Ella onto the lining of creamy fennec fur inside. Uncertain what to say, he told me of the local carpenters who put it together, Mark and Sean, and the hunter, Gibson, who provided and prepared the hides. I made a mental note to thank them afterwards, along with Sister Bethan for the knitted dress and teddy bear. I still couldn’t help feeling their kindness is self-motivated – for the mark on my hand – but they have shown consideration where others haven’t, and I know my opinions are jaded. Preservation is a strong motivator, certainly, but humanity shines through and people band together as they have since the beginning of ages. I cannot fault them for it. If I were in their position, would I do the same?

Knight-Captain Rylen joins us at the cabin on the outskirts of Haven. He and Cullen carry the coffin between them, the lid now in place. I follow them through the streets, lined with people saluting in parody of the sight I faced when temporarily sealing the breach and when I first heard their awed whispers: ‘Herald’. I can’t make them the promises they want to hear. It’s an unfitting title which comes with extreme expectations, _but I’ll try,_ I repeat. _For Ella._

They had prepared a grave in one of the alcoves tucked down the side of the chantry building, and low rays shone through the trees up on the ridge, dappling the snow-crusted earth with white diamonds. Cullen and Rylen lowered the coffin into the newly dug ground, and then stood, flanking me on either side, as a chantry mother clasped her hands together in prayer and began. I don’t know the passages she recited, but I recognized one from Cullen’s vigil last night. I’ve never been overtly religious - I’ve not given much thought to mortality, or if any greater Being directs things from behind the curtain. The prayers, for Ella, sounded lovely. But, without a shared faith I don’t garner the same conviction a greater plan by a Maker. There’s little consolation. Perhaps it’s something I can find or am meant to.


End file.
